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Last week I was interested to see a picture of celebrity Tamara Ecclestone pop up on my newsfeed.

Source: BBC.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/38932320

Tamara was shocked. Shocked and saddened that her valiant attempt to normalise breastfeeding through a stunning photoshoot had not been received with the blanket adulation that she had expected. More than that though, for Tamara there is nothing but love in the images and it’s such a shame that it brings out anger in some of you it’s sad for you that that’s how you choose to live. Personally, I think that love may well have been the order of the day, but there were also probably more scatter cushions than there were in the John Lewis Christmas sale this year.

I don’t know why she would expect blanket adulation because my experience of being a woman and having access to the internet has shown me that I could post an image of a packet of crisps with a vagina and somebody would try to concern troll over what birth control it was using. Post a picture of breastfeeding and you are guaranteed to uncover that very special type of person who is mortally offended by a nipple. This is annoying and these people deserve to be treated as the newts that they are and I delight in doing so. However, the four of five newts come with legions of likes, shares and messages of support, as I’m sure Tamara’s PR team know well.

The thing is, we’ve seen these images before, Gisele did it, [here]. Body confidence advocate Tess Holliday used the women’s marches two weeks ago to do it [here] and this week, it’s Tamara’s turn [here]. All of these images have striking similarities. We see beautiful, wealthy, white and glamorous women gazing off into the distance while effortlessly nurturing wide-eyed babies (scatter cushions optional). These women are professionals at re-packaging our bodies as an ideal and selling them back to us, they have a team of PR execs and agents to help them in their quest for self-promotion and this is exactly what’s happening here. Usually we are allowed to be angry about the lack of realism and unattainability of things like the thigh gap, but here the product is breastmilk and it’s different rules.

In the UK, 81% or women initiate breastfeeding whilst they are in hospital. Given that figure, it’s hard to keep a straight face when someone tells you that seeing someone breastfeed is some sort of revelation, but they do. By the time the baby is six weeks old that figure falls to 55% and by six months, it’s at 1%. Of those women who stop breastfeeding, 80% of them desperately wanted to but could not. These women have internalised the mantra breast is best and they’ve given it everything they’ve got but come away feeling like abject failures when their breastfeeding dreams didn’t come true.

For them, when they see an image like that with the words powerful demonstration of love and nurturing it feels like a kick in the teeth. As I imagine it does for those among the 20% who don’t attempt to breastfeed because they’re transgender or survivors of sexual violence, on certain medications or adoptive parents, or because it simply isn’t the best choice for their family. For those parents all they can hear is:

A powerful demonstration of love and nurturing THAT YOU CAN’T GIVE.

That you can’t give, written as if by sparkler; bright, hot, fleeting and gas lit. Or worse, that you are too selfish to give. Of course there is anger.

The late John Berger wrote a lot about advertising and how it works. To skim it, a good advertising campaign creates a tableau that we all recognise subconsciously to some extent, like the Madonna and Child. You foreground a product of lifestyle that is difficult but perhaps not impossible to imagine yourself attaining, this creates envy. Then you distribute it far and wide. If it’s something that everybody can have it simply won’t sell as either an image or product. I mean I love my Henry the Hoover, it never lets me down. I’m never going to make it look like Tamara makes breastmilk look because it is so very mundane and attainable.

If you haven’t yet read Berger’s book Ways of Seeing then you should, because he also makes the point that:

“[P]ublicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats […] takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world.” [Berger: Ways of Seeing, p. 149]

Tamara and her photographer’s image, and those that came before are the epitome of the genre. Glamorous and unattainable, always just slightly beyond reach. Why? Because for all of the hashtags and so called ‘normalising’, they do nothing to address the structural inequalities that mean that none of us really gets to choose to live the way we would really like. They are publicity as a mask.

The NHS is struggling and with maternity services, according to the National Health Executive report of January 2017, disturbingly high numbers of women are experiencing so-called ‘red-flag’ events. What are ‘red-flag events’? They’re events that happen because we simply do not have enough care for women, even to the point that of women not receiving one-to-one care during established labour. If we can’t even ensure that women have that level of care when they’re giving birth can we hope for better during the post natal period and with breastfeeding support? No prizes here for guessing that no, we can’t:

On occasions where we have actually spoken to women who found themselves unable to breastfeed over dismissing them as bitter and hateful trolls, we find that something like 80% cite pain as a key reason that they were unable to continue. If a mother simply cannot get the help that she needs from a dedicated professional then she cannot continue.

Since 2010 the UK has faced austerity and whether or not you agree with the necessity, in March 2016 the Women’s Budget Group found that women are hit harder than men and households headed by women such as lone parents […] are hit harder. What does this mean for mothers? It means cash in hand, manual labour jobs where you can’t have your children with you. It means no maternity leave because you’re restricted to short-term, temporary contracts. It means not being able to afford the bus fare to get to the doctors when you have mastitis or to pay for the prescription for medicines you might need to treat it. It means choosing between heating and eating. It means that having the time, energy or will to go through the pain of establishing breastfeeding may well not be at the very top of your agenda.

If you do have a job that you are able to go back to, there is unsurprisingly yet more bad news. The House of Commons committee on Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination, tells us that not only is there more discrimination reported now than a decade ago, but also there is no legal duty to provide a place to breastfeed or store milk. So even women who are able to afford the highest levels of childcare may not be able to continue to breastfeed their babies until two years of age.

These images are beautiful and modern reinterpretations of the Madonna and child tableau, chic and classic, but they do nothing to address any of the challenges faced by women today. Even if women in their droves started saying that had they just seen one more photo they could have breastfed on, I don’t know if this one would really help. We already know that wealthy, well-educated and thirty something are more likely to breastfeed, it’s already normal. Most of us could only dream of owning that many scatter cushions in a lifetime and one of her shoes could probably cover at least a month’s rent. As a twenty-two year old, pregnant dropout who just couldn’t get her breasts to co-operate, the only thing that image would have done for me is amplify my failure on every single count. With the benefit of hindsight, and good research, I now know that I’m not alone.

Breastfeeding a new baby is already normal, breastfeeding a two year old has yet to become the norm. When every parent has the luxury of choice over how and for how long they feed their babies, it most likely will. Papering over the cracks with a few Instagram snaps and calling your critics angry and bitter isn’t going to cut it. We need to meet every obstacle head on. We need to treat our fellow parents with empathy. Above all, we need to support each other.

#ISupportYou.

Stephanie Maia is a UK-based writer for FearlessFormulaFeeder.com and the #ISupportYou movement.

For obvious reasons, I get excited whenever the media takes notice of how formula feeding parents are feeling.

That’s what happened yesterday, when the media (and my email, Twitter and Facebook feed) exploded with the news of a new campaign meant to fight back against breastfeeding pressure, using the hashtag “#bressure”. When I first read the articles about the movement, I noticed the positive (attention to the experience of “failing” to meet breastfeeding recommendations) and ignored the references to the “brelfies”, breastfeeding photos which apparently spurred the campaign in the first place. I even sent a letter to the creators, praising them and asking if the FFF community could contribute in some way.

I’ve run a modestly large international community of formula feeding parents for the past six years, and I know several truths:

1. Formula feeders are a diverse group, just as breastfeeders are a diverse group. There are militant, intolerant formula feeding parents who truly do believe that women shouldn’t breastfeed in public, just as there are militant, intolerant breastfeeding mothers who believe formula feeders are selfish, ignorant, and useless. I wish we could vote them all off the island, but alas, such is life. The problem is that we’re letting these factions monopolize the conversation. This is EXACTLY why we started #ISupportYou, to which there was a rather vocal backlash from the intolerant/militant faction, on both sides.

2. The media loves drama. It is so much more fun to blame “brelfies” for the pain we formula feeders endure, because then the extremists come out of the woodwork and create mile-long comment sections, boosting your traffic for the next few days. It is also easier to get inflammatory quotes when nuance is ignored. Nuance doesn’t get web traffic or media attention. Trust me on that one; I speak from experience.

3. Seeing breastfeeding photos is undeniably difficult for those of us who wanted to breastfeed and couldn’t, or feel conflicted about our choices. When we’re feeling vulnerable and judged, it can definitely feel like that model/celeb/Facebook friend’s breastfeeding selfie is intentionally meant to twist the knife a little deeper. But that shouldn’t stop a mom from posting a breastfeeding photo, any more than you should refrain from posting a shot of your newborn when your second cousin is struggling with fertility issues. Both of you have the right to your feelings – your pride, her grief. (That said, there’s the social media-era problem with all of us comparing ourselves to others, posting things we’d never say to someone’s face, and basically acting like insensitive jerks every time we hit “post”.)

4. The breastfeeding selfies themselves are not the problem, but the “#breastisbest #breastfeedingmomsrule #whatsyoursuperpower hashtags can be construed as an attack on formula feeding moms. That’s not me telling you to stop doing them, just explaining why the photos might hurt your best friend who switched to formula three weeks ago. That is not me telling you that the cause of normalizing breastfeeding isn’t important, just explaining why there might be better ways to achieve the same goals without adding to the conflict. Just like this latest “bressure” video series could have had a hugely positive impact, if the impetus behind it didn’t sound like bitterness and jealousy and a who-has-it-worse competition.

5. There’s enough anger, misunderstanding, and generalization on both sides of this debate to fill several football stadiums. When the media chooses to focus on something trivial (“brelfies” – for the love of god, who though of that term) instead of the real issues, we all lose. Personally, it makes me feel like I might as well jump in my DeLorean and head back to 2008, because what the hell have I wasted the past 6 years of my life on?

6. The top reasons that formula feeders are angry, based on my totally unscientific, not-peer-reviewed but at least peer-collected research, are the following:

We are made to feel like inferior mothers by medical professionals, websites, fellow moms, lactation consultants, mommy-and-me group leaders, and the media.

We get no guidance or education on bottle feeding from professionals, and when we seek it out, we get conflicting info peppered with constant reminders of why we really should be breastfeeding, so why even bother attempting to find the best type of formula, since they’re all crap, anyway?

The reasons that breastfeeding advocates and the media give for us “failing” to meet their recommendations are so far from our lived realities, it’s hard to believe we exist in the same dimension.

Everything having to do with babies these days – from conferences to books to radio shows – focuses on breastfeeding. If bottle feeding is mentioned, it’s typically in the context of Things To Avoid At All Costs Unless You Really Have to Go Back to Work In Which Case You Should Just Pump or At Absolute Worst Use Donor Milk.

Yes, there are many breastfeeding advocates who come to troll on our pages and provoke our anger. And yes, there are formula feeders who will do the same on breastfeeding pages. Ignore these people. They do not matter. There are more of us middle-ground, moderate folks than there are of them.

While mom-to-mom cruelty is certainly a part of the problem, we know that there’s a much larger battle to fight – the battle of scientific illiteracy and paternalistic advocate-physician/researchers who are blinded by a religious belief in breastfeeding. If the bullies didn’t have certain unnamed, infamous physicians leading their charge – people who encourage the shaming and ridiculing of formula feeding parents – they wouldn’t have so much power. If society had a better understanding of the reality of infant feeding research, and could acknowledge that correlation and causation are two different animals, it would take away the fear and guilt, on ALL sides.

We just want to be equal with you. Not better. We’re not even asking you to think that formula and breastmilk are equal – that’s a question of science, of risk/benefit analysis, and individual circumstance. All we are asking is that we do not equate the type of liquid going into our children’s bellies with how much we love them, or how bonded we are with them, or how strong/capable/dedicated we are as parents.

This is not about photos. This is not about who has it worse. This is not even about breastfeeding and formula feeding, anymore. It’s about how we view motherhood as a competition, how the powers that be monopolize on this competition, and how the media loves to encourage it. Instead of focusing on brelfies or bressure, let’s get the hell off Instagram and start making an impact in our own communities, with our own friends and fellow parents. Ignore the hype, and focus on the help.

A picture tells a thousand words. But they don’t have to be negative ones.

An anonymous FFF reader has allowed me to publish the following letter, which she sent to her local Public Health unit in Ottawa. I visited the site that caused her so much consternation, and I was equally incensed. Please click here to see what she and I are talking about:

My thoughts on the Ottawa website follow this letter. I’d also encourage you to check out the letter sent by the blogger at Awaiting Juno. And, if you’re feeling inspired to do so and happen to be a citizen of Ottawa (or even if you just feel like giving them your opinion), feel free to write your own letter and send it to healthsante@ottawa.ca.

***

Dear City of Ottawa Public Health Unit,

I discovered the following webpage on Informed Consent and was utterly dismayed at what I had read.

I had my daughter seven years ago and am hoping to have another child within the next two years. When I was pregnant with her I knew I was going to breastfeed her. I felt that formula was vastly inferior. Unfortunately having breast hypoplasia (something that none of the literature of had prepared me for), made exclusive breastfeeding an impossibility. My daughter went from losing weight on my breasts alone (I did have a postpartum nurse who was very concerned about my breasts due to their shape and spacing, but I dismissed it as an unsupportive nurse, not as her giving me relevant information on my situation), to thriving on formula.

That page isn’t giving informed consent, it is scaring women into breastfeeding by bringing up scary words like “obesity”, “SIDS” and “Cancer”, without mentioning any potential drawbacks for breastfeeding (including not being able to take certain medication and that it can be a physically and emotionally draining experience for some) and without making any positives about formula. It also doesn’t mention that formula prepared properly is a valid feeding method and choosing it doesn’t mean that a child will end up toothless, obese, diagnosed with cancer, or dead. From what I have seen about the research the main risks are a higher rate of gastrointestinal viruses and ear infections (which my daughter did get, when she was 5 and a half years old). For a woman who might be already sad that breastfeeding isn’t working out with them, such phrasing of information without perspective or actual risk amounts could contribute to postpartum depression. I should know- seeing that kind of information online (it exists all over the internet) after switching to formula was a contributing factor to my own depression.

You mention on the first page that the Baby Friendly designation includes supporting women’s feeding choices, but I do not see how that supports a formula feeding woman at all and could increase the stigma and isolation about using a product that is in fact very safe to use in our city.

I encourage you to take that “Informed Consent” page down and rework it so that it does not demonize formula. The benefits of breastfeeding in all honestly should be able to stand on its own without resorting to demonizing formula. Furthermore, I am more than willing to help with any rewording to help formula feeding moms feel more supported in their choice.

As a taxpayer, mother and a woman who felt intense guilt for 2 years for using a product that nourished my daughter where I couldn’t (I also have the perspective that she is a very healthy, active 7 year old), I urge you to reconsider your approach.

Yours truly,

A.

***

Before I return to my Pad See-Ew, which is currently getting cold (yet another reason to be annoyed at the city of Ottawa – they are ruining my damn dinner), I want to add a few of my own thoughts to Anonymous’s letter.

The document on the Ottawa Dept. of Health website is coercive and factually inaccurate, starting with the first sentence. They state:

Deciding how you are going to feed your baby is one of the most important decisions you will make as a parent.

What the “most important decisions” you’ll make as a parent are is entirely subjective.

Next, they state:

Making an informed decision means you have all of the information you need to help you decide what is best for your family.

Yep. Exactly. You deserve accurate, dispassionate information so that YOU can decide what is best for YOUR family. This document does the polar opposite. It confuses correlation and causation (I only see two uses of the important qualifier “may” in the lists of benefits and risks – for example, they claim that breastfeeding “helps to protect against cancer of the breast and ovary.” It would be accurate to say that breastfeeding “may help to protect…” or “has been associated with a lower risk of…”, but the way they pronounce this benefit makes it sound proven without a doubt. This is simply not true); it does not mention any of the potential downsides of breastfeeding, nor the benefits of formula feeding (even if they’d just said “the ability to feed your child when breastfeeding isn’t working or there isn’t a mom in the picture”, it would have sufficed); and most importantly, it does not leave the reader with any choice other than to breastfeed, or feel like an inadequate, terrible human being. And before someone starts misquoting Eleanor Roosevelt to me, let me stop you: yes, people CAN make you feel guilty without your consent. Or if you can’t agree with me on that, let’s forget about guilt – how about embarrassed or judged? Can people make you feel that way without your consent? And what if you’re not in any emotional place to give that consent? Like when you are a hormonal pregnant or newly postpartum parent, and it’s your city government posting a bunch of fear-inducing drivel under the headline “the benefits or breastfeeding for the baby, mother, family and the community”? How about then?

The document’s piece de resistance is this half-assed suggestion at the bottom of the page:

If you have made the informed decision to formula feed and need information on how to prepare it safely, please visit Ottawa Public Health’s Food safety page.

Ah, I see. So if you’ve made a decision to do something that causes nothing but inconvenience, pain, and suffering for you and your child (and your community- can’t forfet your community!) based on this “information”, you should just go to a different department, because we’re freaking OVER you. Notice that when the link for more information on breastfeeding follows this taxonomy:

There is NOTHING about formula in this “Feeding your baby” section. Instead, formula feeding monsters, er, mothers are directed to:

Residents>>Public health>>Food safety and inspections>>Baby Formula

Apparently, healthy babies and parenting only has to do with breastfeeding. Formula feeding is on par with selling hot dogs at softball games.

I don’t even know what to say, except to all the soon-to-be moms and currently formula-feeding or combo-feeding mothers in Ottawa, I am so, so sorry. Your city health department sucks donkey balls. And if I were you, I’d start the angry tweets and emails right. Freaking. NOW.

“Children of parents who have diabetes have higher risk of diabetes themselves. Reproduce responsibly. Learn more.”

“Hispanic and Black children have higher risk of diabetes. Race matters. Learn more.”

“Children who are poor have higher risk of diabetes. Money matters. Learn more.”

If any of the above statements were posted on the walls of a bus, there would be an intense backlash, and rightfully so. Not only do these messages contribute to the shaming of people with diabetes – a condition that, according the American Diabetes Association, is primarily due to genetic predisposition – they are also offensive, misleading, and would fit quite well into a sci-fi thriller about eugenics. True, these factors are associated with higher rates of diabetes, but the story is far more complex than these slogans suggest, and to imply otherwise is nothing short of irresponsible.

Yet, a similar advertisement will be posted on public buses in Canada, suggesting that mothers of children who develop diabetes may be to blame for their children’s condition, due to their infant feeding choices (or lack thereof).

Ad from the Calgary Breastfeeding Matters Group (CBMG.ca)

The slogan Babies who aren’t breastfed have higher risk of diabetes, is problematic. The omission of the word “may” (“Babies who aren’t breastfed may have higher risk…) implies that ALL babies whose mothers do not (or cannot) provide mother’s milk are doomed to a higher risk of diabetes.

Yet, the recent meta synthesis study by the World Health Organization (1) which examined 314 studies from 43 countries, reported that while breastfeeding may have protective effect for type -2 diabetes among adolescents, “Generalization from these findings is restricted by the small number of studies and the presence of significant heterogeneity among them” (p. 12). Moreover, there is no evidence to support that breastfeeding is protective against Type 1 diabetes, which is more common in the pediatric population (2).

To understand how this ad is misleading, it’s important to understand that diabetes is not one disease, but actually a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both. Saying blanket statements about diabetes is like saying “Brittany S sucks”. Who? Brittany Spears? Brittany Snow? Brittany S. Pears from Glee? Brittany spaniels? Same name, but very different entities. The causes of the various types of diabetes also vary. Although there are 3 main types of diabetes (Type 1, Type 2, and Gestational), people can get diabetes as a result of other conditions, like cystic fibrosis, organ transplantation, or having HIV/AIDS.

Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as non-insulin dependent diabetes or adult onset diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes across the general population. It is most often associated with older age, obesity, family history of diabetes, previous history of gestational diabetes, physical inactivity, and certain ethnicities, and can typically be managed via weight control, dietary changes, and exercise. It has come to be viewed in society as a disease of “fault”; another spoke in the wheel of the obesogenic machine that is currently speeding through our society like a shiny, red Corvette, crushing all nuance and holistic scope in its path.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, unrelated to weight or lifestyle factors. This is important to distinguish because children with Type 1 and their parents often get unjustly blamed for the condition (imagine how it must feel, on top of worrying about your chid’s blood sugar levels getting deathly high or low, to contend with people asking if you fed him or her nothing but junk food?) While there is some data suggesting the existence of environmental, viral, or physiological “triggers” for Type 1 diabetes, current research has not shown that it can be prevented (3) by any means, including maternal feeding.

Furthermore, to date, no studies have shown direct correlation between maternal feeding and the development of either form of diabetes, as this campaign would suggest. There is some evidence that children who were breastfed have a lower incidence of developing Type 1 diabetes [4] but the data are merely associative, as there are multiple confounding factors known to develop conditions for the disease. For example, the data coming from the burgeoning field of epigenetics have demonstrated a fairly robust association between allostatic load, or stress, in pregnancy, and higher risk for diabetes, coronary and ischemic disease. [5]

The Babies who aren’t breastfed have higher risk of diabetes advert, sponsored by the Calgary Breastfeeding Matters Group (CBMG), is the fifth in a series of pro-breastfeeding posters. The first four successfully inform and empower public awareness regarding breastfeeding; promoting the message that breastfeeding in public is normal with witty slogans and amusing imagery. This makes the current diabetes-themed poster all the more troubling–with its image of a bottle marked with the word “insulin” next to a foreboding hypodermic needle. To promote the scientifically inaccurate message with hyperbolic imagery misleads the general public, and burdens the parents and children affected by both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes with unnecessary doubt and concern.

The CBMG may have expected backlash as its website offers a “Resource Sheet” to accompany the advertisement. They link to three different sources of data to back up their claim, with the introductory proclamation that “Recent 2013 research states that breastfeeding as a preventative measure against Type I and Type II diabetes is Level III Evidence”. The first link, to a Nordic systematic literature review, does confirm that the evidence supporting longer-term breastfeeding as a preventative measure (as opposed to “any” breastfeeding) is “Level III evidence”, indeed. What the CBMG fails to mention is that “Level III evidence” is defined as “limited-suggestive”. [6] (To be fair, the study does qualify the evidence for “any” breastfeeding being potentially protective as Level 2 – “probable” – based on studies of varying quality and methodologies.)The other two citations – another review and a seminar about epigenetics [7] [8] – both contain numerous caveats about their findings; neither offers anything close to conclusive evidence that breastfeeding is protective against diabetes – evidence that is hardly worth screaming from the rooftops. Or posting on the wall of a bus.

Without going into a lengthy discussion on the limitations of using two reviews and a lecture as the basis of an emotive advertising campaign, It should suffice to say that infant feeding has not been adopted as a significant reductive factor worthy of promoting to the general public by the American Diabetes Association, nor the Canadian Diabetes Association, expert authorities on this condition (although both of these sources do discuss the research into the breastfeeding-diabetes connection on their websites). In fact, diabetes expert Dr. David Lau has already spoken against about the campaign, telling the Calgary Herald that the studies used to support the campaign “were essentially surveys…(and) he called any ad based on current, formal research to be an ‘extrapolation’.”

The CBMG “Resource Sheet” also contains a “Q and A”:

So, I breastfed my baby but she still got diabetes! Is that my fault?

There are many risk factors which influence chronic diseases, not breastfeeding is only one of these risk factors.

When you have not realized your breastfeeding goals, you may inappropriately blame yourself, when it is the lack of information and support which is the real culprit

Let go of guilt. Use that energy to enjoy and celebrate your child and the accomplishments you have made.

This ad is cruel! It makes women who did not breastfeed feel guilty.

This argument by the public and health professionals takes the responsibility away from those supporting mothers who have not provided the information and support to help her reach her breastfeeding goals.

Information about the health risks of formula do not come from formula companies, but it is very important for moms-to-be to realize there are risks. This needs to be delivered along with breastfeeding support resources.

(Source: CBMG.ca)

In other words, if your baby was breastfed and still got diabetes, there’s a potential that other factors may be at play- but more likely, you didn’t meet your breastfeeding goals. Don’t feel guilty, though – you were probably booby trapped! It’s not your fault you gave your baby diabetes. Although it kind of is.

This ad, well intention as it may be, will quite possibly inflict unnecessary shame and guilt on the parents of children with diabetes; perpetuate the confusion between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes; and stigmatize women into breastfeeding rather than encouraging them to do so in a positive, constructive way. It would serve CBMG to remove this ad from their otherwise positive breastfeeding promotion campaign. Otherwise, they risk ruining an empowering, powerful campaign with the usual polarizing, negative, and historically ineffective tactics that have perpetuated the “bottle/breast” wars and kept parents from the important work of keeping themselves, and their babies, happy and healthy.

This post was a collaborative effort between Suzanne Barston (the FFF) and Walker Karraa, MFA, MA, with assistance from Polly Palumbo, PhD, Sarah Lawrence, PharmD, MA, Teri Noto, and Kristin Cornish, and several others who wish to remain anonymous for professional reasons.

The problem with writing a post which criticizes an organization which strives to help starving kids is that it makes you feel like the Grinch. Or Gargamel. I feel like I should be stroking an acrimonious cat and arching a pair of overgrown eyebrows inward.

Save the Children does a lot of wonderful things for children in dire straits, and I don’t want to come down on them too hard. And in many respects, I applaud their recently announced “Superfood for Babies” initiative. I do believe that breastfeeding is a hugely important part of improving childhood mortality in resource-poor nations, and the report supporting the program offers some excellent perspective on the challenges of raising exclusive breastfeeding rates in these areas.

In public health circles, there’s a lot of discussion on messaging – how to make PSAs culturally appropriate, sensitive, and effective. The thing is, this doesn’t only hold true for at-risk groups – it also applies to the middle-class factions of western nations. It’s just as ineffective (and inappropriate) to try and graft a message addressed to people living in tribal societies with problematic water sources onto a secretary in suburban Iowa as it would be to do the opposite. Yet, this is what happens – repeatedly – in our international discussions of breastfeeding. (Incidentally, this is at the root of my beef with Unicef and WHO, and why I feel it’s necessary to amend the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative set forth by those organizations to be more culturally appropriate to developed, Western societies.)

This brings us to my scroogey analysis of the “Superfood for Babies” campaign. I would encourage everyone to read the literature – it offers some truly excellent insight into the specific issues at play in a variety of developing nations, and makes it clear (whether or not it intends to) that formula is not the only barrier to encouraging exclusive breastfeeding. In some cultures, there are beliefs that breastfeeding for the first few days of a babies life is detrimental; in others, women feel pressured to produce as many babies as possible, thus making the fertility-restricting nature of breastfeeding a downside; and in others, it’s not formula which is used as a supplement but raw animal milks or concoctions of grains.

Save the Children (STC) did a lot right with this report. They addressed the need for social change; advised that governments subsidize breastfeeding women so that those in unstructured agricultural jobs (which don’t exactly come with a 401k or paid maternity leave) don’t need to return to work immediately, and have to choose between making a living and feeding their babies; and they press for better education and involvement from medical workers and midwives. I think their motives were great, and they did their homework.

Unfortunately, in their excitement, they lost perspective in three key areas…

1. They were (intentionally or unintentionally) vague about the research

Look, I would never argue that breastfeeding isn’t the best choice – by far – for babies in places where food is scarce, infection and disease runs rampant, medical care and antibiotics are severely limited, and the water source is questionable. Formula feeding is dangerous in these settings. But since breastfeeding advocates and orgs like WHO have made breastfeeding a global issue, we have a responsibility to be honest about what our body of research actually says. There are numerous instances in the STC report where claims are simply not held up by their citations. For example, this quote, on page vii of the report’s introduction:

It is not only through the ‘power of the first hour’ that breastfeeding is beneficial. If an infant is fed only breast milk for the first six months they are protected against major childhood diseases. A child who is not breastfed is 15 times more likely to die from pneumonia and 11 times more likely to die from diarrhoea[2]. Around one in eight of the young lives lost each year could be prevented through breastfeeding,[3] making it the most effective of all ways to prevent the diseases and malnutrition that can cause child deaths[4].

Let’s take a closer look at the citations. The first one, #2, is from a UNICEF report on diarrhea and pneumonia- not a study, but a report. So it took a bit of digging to see exactly where they were getting their data from. I *think* this figure comes from a table attributed to a Lancet piece, which “estimated” that “Suboptimum breastfeeding was… responsible for 1·4 million child deaths and 44 million disability-adjusted life years”. I couldn’t get the full study on this one, but again – it was an estimate, most likely based on other studies – not hard data.

Citation #4 is the one that’s bothersome, however (#3 is just a footnote with the definition of “exclusive breastfeeding”). The sentence “making it the most effective of all ways to prevent the diseases and malnutrition that can cause child deaths” is most likely read as “breastfeeding is the most effective way to prevent child death”. That’s quite emotive. The citation leads you to a Lancet paper on child survival, which does have some dramatic data and charts regarding the interventions which would most reduce infant mortality in the developing world. Breastfeeding is shown to offer the most dramatic reduction in risk- but there’s one important point to consider: while this report focuses on death in children ages 0-5, the majority of these deaths occur in the first few months of life. Exclusive breastfeeding, as opposed to mixed feeding or exclusive feeding of substitutes including goat or buffalo milk, paps, or formula (important to note that in many of the countries STC is concerned about, traditions include feeding neonates animal milks or solids within hours of birth – so I think it’s arguable that the issue here is the risk of giving a baby anything but breastmilk via the breast, rather than breastfeeding being the “magic bullet” the report dubs it to be. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t see consistently poor outcomes in mixed-fed kids, as a “magical” substance would compensate) is going to reduce the risk of infections that cause death in very young babies. In other words – if the most deaths are in newborns, and breastfeeding saves newborns more than any other interventions like vaccines, clean water, etc – then there will be a disproportionate representation of “babies saved by breastmilk” in the results. This is not to say that breastfeeding isn’t an incredibly worthwhile and effective solution to reduce infant mortality, but it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that breastfeeding alone will be the most effective intervention for ALL childhood deaths, which is exactly what the STC report does.

2. They didn’t consider the societal implications of their recommendations, beyond the scope of infant health

I was taking notes as I read the STC report, and my heading for the section which included this quote was “OMGOMGOMG”:

Many women are not free to make their own decisions about whether they will breastfeed, or for how long. In Pakistan, a Save the Children survey revealed that only 44% of mothers considered themselves the prime decision-maker over how their children were fed. Instead it is often husbands or mothers-in-law who decide….

….To overcome harmful practices and tackle breastfeeding taboos, developing country governments must fund projects that focus on changing the power and gender dynamics in the community to empower young women to make their own decisions.

Changing the power and gender dynamics sounds like a fantastic idea, and I would support any program that attempted to do this. But STC has to realize that “empower(ing) young women (in developing countries) to make their own decisions is a complex and uphill battle that extends far beyond infant feeding. I fear that by placing an emphasis on UNICEF-lauded solutions like warning labels on formula cans/making formula prescription-only, and on educating fathers/elders on the importance of breastfeeding using the current overzealous and often misleading messages, in these countries – places where, all too often, females are already considered “property” and subjected to any manner of injustices – it will create an atmosphere where women who are physically unable to breastfeed will be ostracized, shamed, or penalized. I agree that we need to empower women, but I think that we also need to be verrrry careful about presenting “suboptimal breastfeeding” as a risky behavior in certain cultures.

In another section, the authors report that breastfeeding rates have gone up in Malawai despite poor legislation on maternity leave, breastfeeding rights, etc. – that these improvements are based solely on strict implementation of WHO Code. I’d like to be reassured that as women are being given no option other than breastfeeding without any of the protections which would make EBF feasible while working, this isn’t having a deleterious effect on their lives. It’s wonderful that breastfeeding rates are up, but what about correlating rates of employment, poverty, and maternal health?

3. They failed to differentiate between resource poor and resource rich countries

I’ve seen a wide range of opinions on the STC program online in the past few days. Most of the drama is over British media reports which mention putting large warning labels on all formula tins – not just the ones going to resource-poor countries. Some feel that these labels will cause unnecessary upset in the West; others argue that when it comes to saving starving/sick third-world babies, privileged mommy pundits should STFU. And others keep insisting that the STC report was misrepresented, and that the labeling stuff was a minor part of the larger plan and shouldn’t be harped on.

All of these arguments are valid, and yet all are missing the nuance necessary to have a productive conversation. We need to realize that not breastfeeding has quite different implications in certain parts of the world. We also need to acknowledge that a woman’s rights are important no matter how much money she has or where she lives, and that we all have a right to stand up for what we believe – it’s rather useless to play the “eat your dinner because children are starving in Africa” game, and rather un-PC as well.

But STC also needs to take responsibility, here. The fact is that the report does not really differentiate between resource-poor and resource-rich countries when it is discussing WHO Code and formula marketing. For example, this passage on p. 45 describes laws which STC wants implemented worldwide:

Breast-milk substitute companies should adopt and implement a business code of conduct regarding their engagement with governments in relation to breast-milk substitutes legislation. Companies should include a public register on their website that outlines their membership of national or regional industry bodies or associations, any meetings where the WHO Code or breastfeeding is discussed, and details of any public affairs or public relations companies they have hired, alongside the nature of this work… Any associations (such as nutrition associations or working mothers’ associations) that receive funding from infant formula companies should be required to declare it publicly. In addition to this information being made publicly available on the websites of individual companies, the International Association of Infant Food Manufacturers should publish a consolidated record of this information, updated on a quarterly basis.

Personally, I think the money spent on a “governing association” in order to police this policy would be better spent on funding literacy programs to help parents read the labels we’re arguing about. Some of these countries have literacy rates of like 30% – which makes me wonder exactly who the labels are geared to, if not the Westerners for whom formula feeding is far, far less of a risky endeavor.

Don’t mistake me – the evidence given in this report about the shady practices of formula co’s is alarming. There needs to be something done about unethical marketing practices in parts of the world where information is limited, education is a true privilege, and options are a joke. Yet, in the STC report, there is ample (and quite good) evidence that the unethical efforts of formula companies are only one slice of a thick-crust, Chicago-style pizza. There’s a lot of gooey, barely distinguishable elements which all combine to make a rather heavy problem, and focusing so much on one of them will leave you with the policy equivalent of Domino’s.

Further, the situation with breastfeeding in the developing world is markedly different from what’s going on in Great Britain, the US, Canada, and so forth. The online arguments are proof of this. I’ve seen the same people who argue that breastfeeding is a global issue turn around and tell concerned Americans and Brits that they have no idea what’s appropriate in Peru or Ghana. This may be true, but so is the reverse. International groups like STC have to remember that when they release papers making global recommendations about infant feeding, that they are inviting commentary from a global audience. That’s why we can’t make blanket statements about infant feeding and child health, or try and implement the same rules in order to get the same results. We wouldn’t go into a rural village where families share a 300-square foot hut and start lecturing them about the dangers of co-sleeping, and yet we assume that the same one-size-fits-all public health messaging is fair game when it comes to infant feeding. Breastfeeding might indeed be a global issue, but the type of issue it is varies greatly depending on what part of the globe you’re on.